->''"Traveling through hyperspace ain't like dusting crops, boy! [[IfMyCalculationsAreCorrect Without precise calculations]], we could fly right into a star, or bounce too close to a supernova, and that'd end your trip real quick, wouldn't it?"''-->-- '''Han Solo''', ''Franchise/StarWars'': ''Film/ANewHope''

There are very few things about space that are not freaky. Contemporary space shuttles ride pillars of fire and launching one involves spraying 1100 cubic meters of water on the pad as a muffler to keep the craft from being damaged by the ''noise''. Works such as Creator/RobertAHeinlein's ''Literature/TheMoonIsAHarshMistress'' and Creator/LarryNiven's short stories have pointed out that (barring [[TeleportersAndTransporters teleportation]]) convenient real-space travel between planets has energy requirements on the same order as [[WeaponizedExhaust making significant holes in them]]. And let's not even get started on the whole 'infinite void of nothingness between the stars' [[SpaceMadness aspect]]. Anything with the power to thrust people across light-years rightly should scare their [[SpaceClothes astropants]] off.

[[SubspaceOrHyperspace Hyperspace]], being AnotherDimension or close, sets aside the natural laws that our universe and biologies need. It's sure to be [[AlienGeometries mind-bendingly different]] and hostile to conventional life -- even more so than the void of space itself. [[HyperspaceLanes Clearly marked paths]] may be [[StayOnThePath slightly safer]], or ships may generate a safe field around themselves while travelling. If it fails, the ship is at best returned to normal space, or at worst the passengers are exposed to incomprehensibly fatal horrors. Authors will often take the time to point out that hyperspace is hazardous and fraught with peril, for both the characters and the ships that have to make passage through it.

But long dissertations on it sometimes just don't make this clear. So, to really make a point about how dangerous and scary hyperspace is, they throw some really weird, scary stuff into their vision of it.

It might cause those who look upon it directly to GoMadFromTheRevelation (so keep those view ports shuttered ''tight''), and/or infested by {{Eldritch Abomination}}s that would have even Creator/HPLovecraft [[INeedAFreakingDrink reaching for the absinthe]]. If SpaceIsAnOcean, Hyperspace is that part of the map marked HereThereBeDragons.

See also VoidBetweenTheWorlds, EldritchLocation, AlienGeometries, AcidTripDimension, LudicrousSpeed and TimeIsDangerous.----!!Examples

[[foldercontrol]]

[[folder:Anime & Manga]]* ''LightNovel/CrestOfTheStars'' has a peculiar form of hyperspace which is completely two-dimensional, except for a bubble the ships and missiles generate to travel in. Losing power and having that bubble vanish results in a particularly horrible death; people aren't compatible with two-dimensional topography.* In ''Anime/GunBuster'', this trope is used as joke to scare the younger space cadets by telling them that ghosts appear on ships during hyperspace travel.* The ''Anime/SpaceBattleshipYamato''[='=]s first "space warp" jump is portrayed as a psychedelic experience, with afterimages, [[{{Fanservice}} Yuki's (Nova's) clothes jumping about a meter to the right]], and visions of the Yamato passing over prehistoric Earth, among other things.** ''Anime/SpaceBattleshipYamato2199'' revisits this trope. This time around, while the ''Yamato'''s first warp jump is still a trippy experience, the trippiness is more subdued. The really scary stuff comes from traveling through a [[PortalNetwork subspace gate]], the inside of which looks like traveling through a very rough storm.* Parodied in ''Anime/TenchiMuyoGXP'', when WrongGenreSavvy protagonist Seina feels cheated when his first jump into hyperspace features no light show of any kind; he specifically mentions [[ShoutOut some of the weirdness from]] ''Yamato'' when he describes what he expected.* In ''Anime/NarueNoSekai'', hyperspace used to be much scarier but has been somewhat "tamed" in recent centuries. Strange alien creatures known as Serpents live in the hyperspace network, and their mere presence can destroy a ship mid-transit. The Serpents are completely inscrutable, and nobody has ever been able to determine why they let some ships through and destroy others. It wasn't until the Avalonians (and later the United Stars) figured out how to fight the Serpents that hyperspace became safe and reliable.* Not strictly hyperspace but the idea of dangerous extradimentional travel is in ''Anime/MartianSuccessorNadesico''. No ship can safely pass through a Chulip Gate unless at least one member of the crew has a specific kind of nanite in them: the kind that allows this person to perform [[{{Teleportation}} Boson Jumps]], the technology behind the Chulip. The Jovians found LostTechnology that allowed them to infuse these nanites into volunteers, allowing them to use the technology. Which makes everyone scratch their heads when the titular ship, an Earth design, not only jumps through a Chulip Gate but jumps ''eight months forward in time''. [[spoiler:Then it's learned the same kind of technology is on Mars, only this one is mixing up with the nanite technology being used to terraform the planet. End result? Anyone born on Mars has a superior ability to the Jovians: able to traverse ''time'' as well as space. Then it makes sense since the ''Nadesico'' had at least three Mars-borns at the time.]][[/folder]]

[[folder:Card Games]]* In the cosmology of ''TabletopGame/MagicTheGathering'', the space between planes (sometimes called the Blind Eternities) will instantly kill anyone other than a Planeswalker or someone without serious magical protection (either fundamentally transforming the nature of the traveler, or bringing along a pocket or tunnel of normal space to ride in or pass through). The constantly-shifting currents of metaphysical energy look pretty bizarre, but at least they don't drive people insane... of course, that could only be because even Planeswalkers will be killed by it before they have a chance to go nuts. And then Wizards introduced the Eldrazi, Lovecraftian horrors with the best of them, the Big Three of which originated in the Blind Eternities before they were locked away in Zendikar. And ''then'' [[BigBad Nicol Bolas]] had to go and [[EvilPlan get Jace, Chandra, and Sarkhan all together in the same room as the prison lock...]] Nice job releasing Cthulhu and his two cousins, hero.[[/folder]]

[[folder:Comic Books]]* Franchise/TheDCU** This [[AlternateUniverse Multiverse]], between [[FireAndBrimstoneHell the Fourth World]], the [[EnergyBeings Anti-Monitor]], and [[GiantSpaceFleaFromNowhere Mr. Mind]], is a scary enough place as-is (assuming [[ReplacementArtifact it even exists]]). But then it was officially stated that the ''Creator/{{Wildstorm}}'' universe was set there too, which brought in "The Bleed", the red gap between worlds (named for the space outside the panels of a comic book, of course).** The PhantomZone, also known as the Still Zone or the Ghost Zone. It's complete whiteness in which you can get lost forever. [[Franchise/JusticeLeagueOfAmerica Zauriel]], an angel, even called it "limbo" once.** The entire DC Multiverse is basically contained by an enormous wall at the end of everything called the Source Wall. As seen in [[http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/8/8d/Source_Wall.jpg one panel]], the Source Wall is an enormous screaming mass of writhing flesh, possibly composed of everyone who's ever tried and failed to discover the secrets hidden on its other side. Exactly what it looked like at the start is a good question, then.** And just for fun, Comicbook/{{Lucifer}}, [[ExiledFromContinuity who may or may not be in the DCU]], once opened a gate into the Void, stated as being beyond the Multiverse. It was completely white, which doesn't sound that worrying until one considers that it goes on forever and literally the only landmark is the gate, which is going to get harder and harder to see... Note: the Void and the Source are definitely not the same thing. Lucifer also once got to the Source... and ignored it as completely irrelevant.* ''ComicBook/{{X-Men}}'': The times we've seen the dimension Nightcrawler passes through, it resembles hell. This plot was also used in the comics with Illyana Rasputin's "stepping-discs", which moved the users through the demon-filled Limbo.* ''Franchise/{{Transformers}}''** In the Marvel ''[[ComicBook/TheTransformers Transformers]]'' comics, there's also at least one instance of monsters living in the void between dimensions used as transport medium. When they got their hands on Ramjet, they tortured, unmade, and remade him until they got bored and tossed him back. The result: a not-all-there Ramjet who is simultaneously CursedWithAwesome and BlessedWithSuck: Being "tormented" at the hands of these creatures resulted in his becoming Unicron-class powerful, and keeping a connection to the void that gives him all kinds of RealityWarper tricks (above and beyond what he had during his time as an agent of Unicron). Thanks, evil extradimensional god dudes! On the other hand, he ''isn't'' quite sane, and it's all he can do to hold his own atoms together. His presence is poisonous to reality around him. Not so much fun.*** In the IDW Comics "Infestation 2" crossover arc, ''[[OhCrap they get loose]]'' and are every bit as horrible as they sound. And are apparently the inspiration for the CthulhuMythos. It doesn't seem especially clear that the creatures from this IDW megacrossover are the same as the ones from the much earlier ''TransformersCybertron'' based story, but TFWiki seems to be sure about it.** Later, by the [[WesternAnimation/BeastWars Beast Era]], they use the [[SarcasmMode much safer]] Transwarp technology. Which has a chance of dropping you off anywhere, anywhen if you go off course. Fan convention comics reveal that "anywhere" used to include parallel universes and, presumably, ''void'', until a group from one dimension was nice enough to build a safety net. They keep everyone they catch imprisoned in a single large city, able to move freely about it but not leave.** The IDW G1 continuity is largely an aversion; quantum jumping is surprisingly safe even though a certified scientist goes on the record about how it completely flaunts the known laws of physics. Just don't [[BodyHorror stand too]] [[{{Telefrag}} close]] [[NightmareFuel to the engines]] during a jump.*** Quantum jumping later turns out to have another big danger; if a malfunction occurs and your ship's computer tells the quantum engines to take the ship to two places at once they solve the error by [[spoiler: creating a ''second'' ship, literally duplicating the ship in every single way as it was when the jump was made. This is not inherently dangerous unless the two ships approach each other. If ''that'' happens, it creates a spatial paradox and one ship will start to overwrite the other.]]*** Also, it's a good idea not to let the quantum engines get damaged. If they're hit bad enough, they start forming [[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Quantum_foam quantum foam]]. That's a good thing only if you enjoy being obliterated by a quantum force strong enough to destroy a planet.* When facing off against a shadow-wielding enemy, ''ComicBook/{{Invincible}}'' and his foe get dragged into the shadow dimension. He is warned that there are unseen, horrifying things lurking in there and they make their escape as soon as possible. (These things are likely why the enemy, formerly the sidekick of one of Invincible's father's friends, went insane.)* ComicBook/MarvelStarWars introduced "otherspace", a dimension ''beyond'' hyperspace, a weird place with its own inhuman inhabitants; the effect is spoiled when said inhabitants are pretty much just big (read: Wookiee-sized) mean [[InsectoidAliens bugs]], who later turned out to have come from realspace to begin with.* Fleetway's ''ComicBook/SonicTheComic'' treats the Special Zone in a similar manner as the literature example below. It's a weird place where physics don't really apply, and a planet and an asteroid belt and some swirly things can comfortably be the same place. The characters originally considered it to be some kind of insane 'other place' you really didn't want to spend too long in, and are shocked to later discover [[spoiler:it's inhabited. Of course, the locals aren't exactly ''normal'', either.]]* The 1976 short comic "Approche Sur Centauri” from the French magazine ''Metal Hurlant'' (translated as [[http://theairtightgarage.tumblr.com/post/17976485394/snakebomb-approaching-centauri-philippe "Approaching Centauri"]] when published in the American version of the magazine, ''Heavy Metal'', in July 1977), scripted by Philippe Druillet and illustrated by Creator/{{Moebius}}, featured a hyperspace pilot who briefly experienced a hellish dimension when the generator overloaded and he was "thrown outside the T/S continuum". Upon return, he insisted "I saw nothing...nothing..."[[/folder]]

[[folder:Fan Fiction]]* Warpspace in ''FanFic/SonicXDarkChaos'' is re-imagined as basically a LighterAndSofter version of [[TabletopGames/{{Warhammer40000}} the Warp]]. It's a mind-shattering dimension of pure Chaos Energy and (according to Maledict) [[YouCannotGraspTheTrueForm the "template" or "blueprint" of the universe itself]]. It also happens to be the birthplace of [[EldritchAbomination Lovecraftian horrors]] like Dark Tails [[spoiler: and the [[SealedEvilInACan Can]] of the [[AbusivePrecursors Forerunners]]]]. However, Demon-made FTL technology has advanced and become so ubiquitous across the universe that it's typically safe to travel. If anything goes wrong, though...[[/folder]]

[[folder:Films -- Animation]]* In ''Anime/{{Interstella 5555}}'', Hyperspace is a very funky and psychedelic place with big shiny objects that can heavily damage your ship. And, during the protaganists' return trip, it's where the BigBad attacks them as an {{Energy Being|s}}.* In ''Disney/BigHero6'', [[spoiler: Hiro and Baymax enter what can only be described as hyperspace in attempt to rescue a stranded pilot- it's both beautiful and haunting all at once.]][[/folder]]

[[folder:Films -- Live-Action]]* Disney's (!) ''Film/TheBlackHole'' features a scene in which using a black hole to travel at right angles to reality sends the characters into Hell. Literally. * In ''Film/EventHorizon'', the experimental hyperdrive on the eponymous ship takes it to [[spoiler:a dimension of "pure chaos and evil"]], according to one of the people who winds up spending a short while there. What's worse, [[spoiler:''something'' comes back to ''our'' world.]] It's a recurring joke among some ''TabletopGame/{{Warhammer 40000}}'' fans that ''Event Horizon'' is a prequel, while other fans point to [[spoiler:Weir]] as an unnamed [[Franchise/{{Hellraiser}} Cenobite]]. At any rate, there's certainly a lot of similarity to both.* In ''Film/TheAdventuresOfBuckarooBanzaiAcrossThe8thDimension'', The Oscillation Overthruster allows vehicles to pass through solid matter, through a [[AcidTripDimension bizarre dimension filled with weird creatures]]. One of the first scientists to experiment with it ends up with his head phased into a wall, and gets possessed by an 8th-dimensional nasty, turning him into the [[BigBad main villain of the film]].* In ''Franchise/StarTrek'', usually the [[FasterThanLightTravel warp drive]] either works or doesn't work. But in ''Film/StarTrekTheMotionPicture'', a malfunctioning drive creates a [[OurWormholesAreDifferent Worm Hole]] that, in addition to being difficult to shut down, also sucks dangerous debris into the ship's path instead of deflecting it away.* In the film ''Film/{{Supernova}}'', hyperspace travel is visually terrifying. It's easy to imagine the energies involved destroying the ships and everybody in them. And [[BodyHorror what hyperspace does to living tissue]] if your suspension pod is not functioning perfectly [[FateWorseThanDeath is not something you want to think about]].* In ''Film/TwoThousandOneASpaceOdyssey'', the "Stargate" sequence after making contact with the Jovian monolith. The montage is interspersed with quick cuts of the astronaut's various horrifying facial contortions, just to drive the point home. When the sequence is done and the astronaut is in the "hotel", his face is covered in wrinkles, and he looks as if he's going insane. In the [[AllThereInTheManual novel]], the latter effect is explained as the result of Dave being kept in a kind of "alien zoo" until he falls asleep, and then they run his memories backwards while transforming him into the Starchild. It's only in the movie that he goes through the process of aging a couple of decades every time the camera pans around to show him looking at an older version of himself in the next room, then becoming that older self when in the next shot. (Yes, it's just as surreal as it sounds). If anyone was being weird in the movie, it was Kubrick.* In ''Franchise/StarWars: Film/ANewHope'', [[LoveableRogue Han Solo]] invokes this trope by explaining to [[FarmBoy Luke Skywalker]] why it's impossible to just blast into hyperspace and avoid Imperial ships: it's too dangerous due to the risk of accidentally hitting something or going off course. See [[Quotes/HyperspaceIsAScaryPlace Quotes]] page. As described in Literature below, however, the dangers are more mundane and along the lines of "Planets and stars are still in the way, and traveling fast enough to cross the galaxy in hours means that you can easily smash into one and vaporize."* Creator/TomHiddleston has implied that this is part of what pushes Loki from TheResenter of ''Film/{{Thor}}'' to the full-blown BigBad of ''Film/TheAvengers'': his previous FreakOut was exacerbated by [[spoiler:things he saw between universes after trying to commit suicide by wormhole at the end of ''Thor'']].[[/folder]]

[[folder:Gamebooks]]* In the ''Literature/LoneWolf'' series, the Shadowgates allow travel between other dimensions and other planets. However, actually traveling through a Shadowgate is completely inimical to mortals, ravaging body and soul alike. The two times Lone Wolf travels through a Shadowgate in the Magnakai series rob him of Endurance points. In the Grandmaster series, Lone Wolf can eventually learn how to shield his body from the worst effects of Shadowgate travel.[[/folder]]

[[folder:Literature]]* Creator/LarryNiven's ''Literature/KnownSpace'':** ''Blind Spot''. Since hyperspace is non-Euclidian, a human observer's blind spot "enlarges" to blank out views of this non-space outside the ship. This normally means that view ports seem to disappear into the bulkheads, no big deal -- although, in one tale, Beowulf Shaeffer makes the mistake of looking out past his ship's disintegrated hull into it and forgets how to see, even ''forgets he has eyes'', until he can force his gaze back to his control panel. The blind spot has the unfortunate habit of getting bigger as time goes on in the minds of a sizable chunk of humanity. This eventually drives humans crazy; no commercial starship has windows in the bulkheads for fear that 40% of their passengers will be reduced to permanent, incurable insanity.** Niven's Hyperspace also has a "quantum property" that permanently removes from normal space anything that comes too close to a gravity source.** In later ''Literature/{{Ringworld}}'' books, ''things'' living in hyperspace were also mentioned. [[spoiler:The reason that the things in hyperspace are visible is that it turns out that hyperspace is comprehensible near a large mass. It also appears that what's previously been destroying ships in hyperspace near massive objects is the things in hyperspace, which are ''eating them'. This makes Beowulf Shaeffer's wacky theory in The Borderland of Sol actually correct, as well as making it possible to save the Ringworld from Earth.]]*** [[spoiler: Which is a combination of UnreliableNarrator and re-retcon, later described as being a dubious claim at the least, and most likely an outright lie by the Protector discussing the hyperspace creatures.]]* In ''Literature/TheMoteInGodsEye'', FTL travel via Alderson Drives confuses people and breaks computers, leaving them vulnerable for the first few seconds after jumping into a new star system.* While no spacecraft are involved in Creator/RobertAHeinlein's ''Literature/AndHeBuiltACrookedHouse'', there is a spot in the tesseract home where the protagonists look past a fourth-dimensional corner and see -- nothing. A space where nothing we can understand or perceive exists, not even blackness. The characters decide that permanently covering that particular window is probably a ''really good'' decorating idea.* Creator/GordonRDickson's ''Literature/ChildeCycle'' stories have passengers and crew taking some sort of tranquillizer before a jump, because of the effect hyperspace has on the human nervous system. When Donal Graeme stages a daring raid against an enemy planet in ''Dorsai!'', he uses multiple swift hyperspace jumps to simulate a huge armada attacking his enemy, even though it drives him and his crew to the edge of collapse, with each jump leaving them more and more in pain and disorientation.* W. J. Stuart's novelization of ''Film/ForbiddenPlanet'' has a scene where Doctor Ostrow looking out a viewplate into hyperspace, seeing nothing, under which is a suggestion of distorted stars rushing past at incredible speed. He turns off the 'plate ''fast''.* Creator/TimothyZahn's ''Cascade Point'' has a hyperspace which shows you AlternateUniverse versions of yourself. Implied to be very disturbing, as it's essentially showing you all the other paths your life could have taken. Up to and including "gaps" in the pattern... where your alternate self is dead. For that reason and many others, it's extremely disturbing to most people, to the point that everyone on a ship except the pilot is sedated through the experience. * Creator/IsaacAsimov wrote a Robots story about a computer going mad when asked to design a FTL drive, as the properties of hyperspace meant that humans passing through it were temporarily "dead", and it was programmed to protect human life. And don't forget how the computer hoaxed the crew, during history's first FTL jump, making them think they had died and gone to hell. And filled the pantry with nothing but baked beans. The conflict between its orders and its need to protect human life ''warped'' that thing.* In the novel ''[[Literature/{{Foundation}} Foundation and Empire]]'', it is shown that traveling in hyperspace while being close to a big gravity source (like a planet) is harmful and possibly lethal.* RaymondEFeist's ''[[Literature/TheRiftwarCycle Riftwar]]'' books have a form of magical hyperspace, which happens to be filled with a race of precursors that even some Gods fear. Opening a rift is a really, really bad idea.* Franchise/StarWarsExpandedUniverse** The ''Franchise/StarWars'' [[http://starwars.wikia.com/wiki/Hyperspace Hyperspace]] is rather less dangerous than some of the other examples, but there are risks. A ship in hyperspace doesn't properly exist in realspace, but can be brought out by gravity wells. In the case of planets and asteroids that means appearing in realspace in time to safely change direction and go into hyperspace again; in the case of stars, black holes, and powered-up Imperial Interdictors it doesn't. That's why it's considered dangerous to stray out of established hyperspace routes, and mapping new ones is hazardous.** Going through a gravity well of sufficient size overloads your hyperdrive motivator (what you need to get in and out of hyperspace) and kicks you out of hyperspace; when you over load it, [[StuffBlowingUp it can explode]] possibly taking the ship with it, so there's actually a safety feature that kicks you out before you run the risk of exploding. That's how a fleet of ships got most of the way through a [[spoiler:system-wide interdiction field around Centerpoint station]] but still had to conduct repairs. One of the ships ended up damaged beyond repair because it tried to go a bit too long with the safety turned off.** It's also noted that getting ThrownOutTheAirlock is instantly fatal when in hyperspace, unlike in realspace when it might take a bit. In ''Han Solo at Star's End'', one of the Han Solo Adventure books by Brian Daley (not to be confused with the ''Han Solo Trilogy'' by AC Crispin), [[spoiler:turncoat Torm]] is blown out an airlock into hyperspace. The victim's body is instantly and utterly destroyed.** One novel describes "Hyper-rapture", a form of madness caused by staring at hyperspace for too long; because of this, starships usually have windows that go opaque while in hyperspace. Staring into hyperspace for an extended period of time, if it doesn't give you "hyper-rapture", is said to make most people increasingly uneasy. It doesn't look "right". ''Literature/DeathStar'' quietly underlines Darth Vader's evil/otherness/disconnect from humanity by noting that he ''likes'' staring into hyperspace, and doesn't feel the usual relief when his ship comes out into realspace again; similarly, ''Literature/LukeSkywalkerAndTheShadowsOfMindor'' has Cronal liking it. This is mentioned when one of the most evil villains in the ExpandedUniverse is given a FateWorseThanDeath: by being [[AndIMustScream locked in an escape pod and ejected into hyperspace]]. One escape pod has enough food and water to keep him alive for months, non-opaquing windows, and a ''very'' small area; he'd either go stir-crazy, get hyper-rapture, or survive those long enough to die from lack of supplies. Not to mention that rescue is literally impossible. Very, very bad indeed. As the person who inflicts this punishment on the villain puts it:-->''"I don't know how long you will survive there. I do know that you will die there.\\Die slowly."''** In the novelization for ''Franchise/StarWars: VideoGame/TheForceUnleashed II'', while the ship, The Salvation, is going through hyperspace, the Terror Walker tries to sabotage the ship's navicomp. While Starkiller battles it, he muses in terror that if the navicomp is deactivated mid-jump, the ship could either be blown to atoms or never return to realspace. Eventually, Starkiller defeats the Terror Walker by puncturing the ship's hull, causing the droid to be sucked out into hyperspace. Starkiller takes a moment to pity his foe, horrified by the thought of what it must be experiencing, even if it's a droid.** One comic shows that it's actually somehow possible to use hyperspace to go ''through'' a planet (though it's described as being more akin to essentially bypassing that section of space) but as the person who does so notes, it's '''really''' not recommended outside of extreme emergencies. Presumably has something to do with the fact that gravity wells can yank you out of hyperspace, so the result would be blasting out of hyperspeed within the planet's atmosphere and blowing yourself to bits.* ''Literature/TheHitchhikersGuideToTheGalaxy''** Discussed:-->'''Ford:''' [Hyperspace is] unpleasantly like being drunk.\\'''Arthur:''' What's so unpleasant about being drunk?\\'''Ford:''' Ask a glass of water.** Teleportation is also dangerous:-->''I teleported home one night\\ With Ron and Sid and Meg.\\ Ron stole Meggie's heart away\\ And I got Sidney's leg.''** As Arthur learns in ''Literature/MostlyHarmless'', Hyperspace is even scarier than he suspected; as the resident of a Plural Zone, every time he traveled through it he ran the risk of being catapulted into an AlternateUniverse.** Traveling through a Dark Matter sleeve, as Wowbagger's ship does in ''Literature/AndAnotherThing'', is even freakier, enhancing your emotions, and putting you in touch with aspects of yourself you never knew about. If Hyperspace is unpleasantly like being drunk, dark matter travel is unpleasantly like being [[Literature/{{Discworld}} knurd]].** Using the Infinite Improbability Drive isn't so much dangerous as it is annoying, mainly because A) it requires tons of difficult math to figure out where you're going, and B) due to the Drive's nature, one isn't guaranteed to leave the jump as the species they start out as (it wears off, though).* Creator/StephenKing's short story "[[Literature/SkeletonCrew The Jaunt]]" features a family waiting to be instantaneously teleported from Earth to Mars, in a process that first requires them to be gassed unconscious. The father tells his two children a bowdlerized version of how the technique came to be discovered and why the gas is needed, skipping over the gruesome semi-apocryphal account of the first man to make the trip awake. Unfortunately [[spoiler:the son hears enough to be curious about what the trip is like, so he holds his breath when the gas is administered. The father wakes up on the other end to witness his cackling white-haired son clawing his own eyes out: The physical trip is indeed instantaneous, but the mental journey... well... "[[DoubleMeaning It's longer than you think]], Dad! Longer than you think!!"]]\\\Worse than that, there's a mention of a man who'd set out to murder his wife by sending her through a jaunt gate, and ''not entering a destination''. His lawyers argued at his trial that no-one could actually prove the woman was dead, and the court promptly threw the book at him because the thought of her being lost forever in mid-jaunt, ''alive'', was so horrifying.* Creator/StephenKing's ''Franchise/TheDarkTower'' series introduces Todash space, the space between the worlds, empty except for terrifying monstrosities. "Going Todash" is the act of teleporting between the worlds by passing through Todash darkness either through a door or one's own mind. If one does not make it through from Point A to Point B, it is safe to assume that they are suspended in Todash darkness forever. And they are not alone in that darkness.* In C. S. Friedman's ''This Alien Shore'', hyperspace (called ''ainniq'') is inhabited by creatures called ''sana''. No one is quite sure what exactly a ''sana'' is, as they are imperceptible to human eyes, but common consensus is that the average human being has an extremely short life expectancy upon entering ''ainniq''. There are people who can see ''sana'' and navigate starships to safety; the problem is, they also happen to be clinically insane.* In C. S. Friedman's ''TheMadnessSeason'', humanity allows itself to be conquered/enslaved by a race who has mastered FTL, because the conquerors told (and presumably showed) us that FTL would drive us completely insane; so bad, we wouldn't be able to operate the ship and exit hyperspace. This race is immune to this, however, because they are a HiveMind, and thus feel no fear of death, and thus cannot go insane. "Without us, you will never reach the stars. Surrender." We did.** Our protagonist later discovers [[spoiler: that this is not fully the case; only ''that particular method'' of FTL would drive humans insane.]]* Robert Jordan's ''Literature/TheWheelOfTime'' has ''four'' different ways to travel long distances by magic. Three of them are basically different kinds of hyperspace (the fourth, simply called "Traveling", is truly instantaneous), and ''all'' of those are scary in different ways.** The "Ways", which is a sort of terrestrial hyperspace: mystic gates -- usable by [[{{muggles}} anyone]] -- to AnotherDimension, which handles distance differently and thus allows shortcuts between the gates. Unfortunately, the Ways have decayed into a lightless, crumbling world haunted by Machin Shin, a terrible ghost-like monster which even the minions of evil fear. It's unclear whether that's because they were built by male channellers, who were doomed to madness, or because there's a Waygate in Shadar Logoth, a particularly cursed city, and that city's evil infected the Ways. But either way, travel through the Ways has to be very quick.** Less scary is the void accessed by the "Skimming" technique, which allows a channeler to travel on a platform of their creation through an empty void and directly travel to any known destination they choose. There are problems, however: fall off the platform and you [[AndIMustScream fall forever]]; the platform is created by [[YourMindMakesItReal your perception]], so if you lose concentration, you fall; and creating exits from the void where you aren't supposed to is simply a Very Bad Idea.** Portal Stones are relics from an even earlier age than the TimeOfMyths. They can be used to take someone to alternate timelines where they might experience [[ForWantOfANail their lives if they made different choices]], or to alternate timelines where reality itself works differently (including where time passes differently), or straight from one Portal Stone in your world to another. If you want to go a long distance quickly and don't know exactly how to go straight to the other Portal Stone you want, then the second method might be better than nothing, but accidentally experiencing other lives is traumatizing.* The Gray Limbo in Creator/JulianMay's ''Literature/GalacticMilieu Trilogy''. A virtually addictive "nothing": there's nothing to see, but it's still hard to look away. Can drive a person mad. To top it off, upsilon field transition (a.k.a. jumping to hyperspace) is incredibly painful to intelligent beings, and becomes more so the faster you intend to travel once in the Limbo. So painful, the effective top speed of a craft is determined by how much pain a person can stand without going insane or dying. Humans top out at around 180df (light-years per twelve hours), with two notable exceptions: Jack Remillard, a bodiless brain, who tops out around 400df, and the main antagonist, who figures out a way to enter the Limbo in effectively naked skin just before his HeelFaceTurn, topping out at 18,000df, and then one of the primary causes of his HeelFaceTurn is being given a pain mitigator -- whereupon he travels several '''billion''' light-years to another galaxy in seven hops. The Ships are a race of [[SpaceWhale giant interplanetary beings]] who can be convinced to consume a passenger vessel and serve as spaceships through ThePowerOfLove. One of them made the same several-billion-light-year journey in a single hop, albeit dying in the process.* Continua-craft in Creator/RobertAHeinlein's ''Literature/TheNumberOfTheBeast'' don't directly show any scariness as travel is instantaneous. However there is a slight downside in that inventing one or even just working on the math required to invent one will get you murdered by demons. Well, actually hermaphroditic lobster-aliens who just happen to look like demons.* In a Creator/CordwainerSmith story ''The Game of Rat and Dragon'', ships travel via a kind of Jump drive and hyperspace is a non-issue. On the other hand, there are Horrible Things (humans think of them as dragons, and are terrified -- this story was written before OurDragonsAreDifferent got up any steam) lurking in the darkness of space ''between'' the stars. They can be killed with intense light, but human reflexes aren't up to scratch. On the other hand, cats think of them as rats...* Cordwainer Smith also wrote a number of other stories containing hyperspaces which are scary places. "Literature/ScannersLiveInVain" has long travel through normal space induce pain and suicidal urges in unmodified humans; in ''The Colonel Came Back from Nothing at All'' the eponymous Colonel has his mind taken to be a pet for ''something'' during the test of an experimental "planoform" drive; and ''Drunkboat'' has travel through space3 cause temporary insanity and coupled with inexplicable powers.* Creator/AlastairReynolds's ''Literature/RevelationSpace'' universe also doesn't use hyperspace per se, but its FTL is still a pretty bad idea. So bad that using it carries an extremely high risk of retroactively erasing its users from time (i.e. they are made to die ''before'' the ship was launched). Even races that have been spacefaring for millions of years stick with slower than light travel. It's been said in at least one of his books that the use of FTL has caused entire ''civilizations'' to be retroactively erased from the universe. There's also the [[spoiler:shadows]], who exist in a different "brane" of reality. [[spoiler:Releasing them is a very bad idea.]]* ''Literature/HonorHarrington'': People become violently ill from "crash translations" through layers of hyperspace, a place where it's possible to run into [[NegativeSpaceWedgie sharp gravity gradients]] that will very rapidly shred even the stoutest of ships. It is also dangerous to fight in Hyperspace because the ships weren't designed with hyperspace combat in mind, since the vast majority of combat happens in Realspace. Due to how the ships work (they create a super-dense wedge of gravity, open on the sides and ends, making the ships effectively immune to incoming fire from above or below due to the gravity wedge. So, they don't have any armor plating on the top and bottom of the ships, because the armor would be more effectively used on the vulnerable sides and ends of the ship. In a gravity wave, ships can't use wedges (any ship not generating Warshawski Sails inside a grav wave will get dismembered very quickly, and you can't have sails and wedges at the same time), so even the most heavily armored battleship can find itself getting torn to shreds by a more manueverable destroyer if the angles line up just wrong.* ''Literature/TheApocalypseTroll'', also by Creator/DavidWeber has an even straighter example. The higher levels of hyperspace are described using adjectives such as 'tortured', 'twisted', 'alien' and 'inhospitable'. Messing up a transition at such levels has a very high chance of disintegrating the entire ship into random energy.* ''Literature/DragonridersOfPern'': ''Between'', through which dragons and fire-lizards teleport, is "black, blacker, blackest", has no reference points, and is freezing cold. It's also the dragon method of suicide... intentional or otherwise. (Going ''between'' without a clear mental image of your intended destination is a one-way trip.) It also has no air. Dragons can hold their breaths for a surprisingly long time, but this is rather inconvenient for their human riders. Prolonged and repeated trips through ''between'' also terminate human pregnancies. The Weyrwoman Kylara took advantage of this by using trips through ''between'' as birth control. This also can save dragonriders battling Thread. In the first book ''Dragonflight'', F'lar avoids being eaten by a wad of Thread that hit his face by going ''between''. The icy cold of ''between'' immediately kills the Threads. The series implies that this is the original use of ''between'', a method fire-lizards evolved to help them survive threadfall.* In the novels that describe Creator/CJCherryh's ''Literature/AllianceUnion'' universe, entry into "jumpspace" is psychologically traumatic for most humans, requiring them to drug themselves with tranquillisers for the passage. A few individuals are able to tolerate the transfer and remain conscious "in-jump". They are nicknamed "nightwalkers", a term that suggests the mixed feelings with which they are viewed. On the one hand, they make excellent navigators, and are able to react far faster when the ship comes out of jump than their doped-up crewmates. On the other, the rest of the crew wonder what nightwalkers get up to as they wander round the ship while everyone is asleep...\\\Of course, being a nightwalker is no picnic at first either, because time and space don't properly exist in jumpspace, which is why they're so rare: most sentient minds can't cope with the stress, which is why Hani and Mahendo'sat black out, and humans and stsho need tranq. It's harder on stsho: without tranq, they just die. Hani don't need precautions; the non-nightwalkers are just useless in jump (and they all shed horribly after). Methane-breathers, who knows. One of the scarier things about the kif is the hints that ''all animal life'' from their world are nightwalkers. Like Chanur's "pet" kif. And his "dinner". BTW, the kif had no problem doing this to captured humans. Kif don't need tranqs, so...** One of the shorter stories, ''Port Eternity'', tells the tale of a private yacht trapped in jumpspace by an anomaly, where all aboard, azi and born-men, have to become nightwalkers pretty quickly just in order to survive. And then they have to deal with the other things trapped by the anomaly...** It's not only your own ship in Jump; during a pivotal moment in the ''Literature/ChanurNovels'', the knnn (who do whatever they want for their own reasons) come out of Jump with a captured ship right next to the ''Pride''. The first indication of the Jump is when Tully (the human) starts screaming...** In the back story of ''Literature/RimRunners'', N G ("No Good") Ramey was wrongly accused of being at fault in a fatal accident, and was denied tranquilizers during a jump as punishment.** ''Downbelow Station'' describes a scary incident involving an overloaded refugee ship, the ''Hanford'', which has had an onboard riot; there were not nearly enough tranqs for those onboard during Jump.* It's similar, though toned down, in the Hyperspace of her ''Literature/{{Foreigner}}'' universe, where hyperspace causes muzzy-headedness. While this might not seem very bad, hyperspace journeys take a long time in the ''Foreigner'' {{verse}}, so the unpleasantness gets amplified by social interactions and cabin fever.* In ''[[Literature/ThePolity Brass Man]]'' by Neal Asher, viewscreens are usually blanked out while ships are travelling through underspace, but Ian Cormac suddenly finds that he can see something there. Apparently it's part of his [[AscendToAHigherPlaneOfExistence ascension to a higher plane of existence]].* In the ''Literature/BrokenSky'' series, the space between the two worlds (that is, the Dominions and Kirin Taq) is shown to drive anyone not specially trained to live in it insane. Indeed, in one of the later books [[spoiler:Kia]] loses her memory simply from seeing a glimpse of it after a failed jump between worlds.* ''Literature/{{Animorphs}}''** Andalite ships are capable of traveling through Zero-Space, a horrible, totally blank, N-dimensional void. Ships passing through are usually safe, but in one book, Ax was catapulted into Zero-Space, and discovered the full effects of the void before being rescued. Not only was he swiftly dying from lack of oxygen, but the non-dimensional nature of Zero-Space forced him to see his own body from all directions, including ''inside'', even as his hearts began to slow.** Ax also mentions at one point that, when morphing into larger or smaller creatures, mass is taken or stored away temporarily as a balloon in Zero-Space to compensate for the size discrepancy. If the characters sharing terrified looks of their mass floating in the middle of nowhere isn't enough, Ax also mentions that there's a one-in-a-billion chance that an Andalite ship traveling through Zero-Space may run into the mass, which would then be incinerated by the ship's energy shields. {{Squick}}. Well, that was the theory... until Ax and the rest of the team were pulled into Z-space by a passing Andalite ship and experience what is described in the first bullet. Essentially they were pulled along in its "wake" instead of being incinerated. Both of the above examples are actually the same incident, which would have killed the team if not for Ax using his thought-speak to contact the Andalites on the ship and getting everyone beamed aboard in time.** And then there is the time that a NegativeSpaceWedgie creates a crazy patchwork world derived from the thoughts and memories of the two protagonists (and the antagonist). At the edge of the world is Z-space. One character reaches her arm out into Z-space, and it ''reverses in on itself and goes back the same way.'' It goes back to normal when she jerks her arm back in terror, but the experience left her badly shaken.** ''The Andalite Chronicles'' reveals that Z-space travel times between the same two points can vary. In particular, a late chapter has a Z-space rift form around the Sol System, which means that a trip to or from Earth that would normally take weeks or months would now take years. This rift dissipated by the end of the book, opening the way for the Yeerks' first invasion attempt.* In ''Literature/PerdidoStreetStation'', the universe that the Weaver travels through is described like a spiders' web with strands going through more than just the three dimensions and connecting every aspect of existence. It is implied that the physical universe the main characters inhabit is only one facet of this meta-reality.* The British ''Franchise/SonicTheHedgehog'' novels had the Warps of Confusion (a.k.a. the Special Zone from ''Sonic 1'') which Robotnik was able to tap into to teleport his ships around the planet. Anyone who's played the original game knows just how well those areas fit this trope.* Creator/TerryPratchett** In the early novel ''Literature/TheDarkSideOfTheSun'', ships travel through "interspace" in which all possibilities are true. Most ships are shielded against the trippy hallucinatory results.** In another book, ''Literature/{{Strata}}'', an Elsewhere jump can move your body so far that it takes time for your soul to catch up:-->''a few seconds of vertigo, a brief agony of despair. Soullag, it was called on little evidence. Certainly ''something'' in the human mind refused to travel faster than -- it had been experimentally verified -- 0.7 light-years per second, so that after even a short jump through Elsewhere-space there was a hollow black time before the rushing mental upwellllll--''* Creator/SergeyLukyanenko has different examples of hyperspace:** In ''Literature/TheStarsAreColdToys'' humans have invented the jump drive, which instantaneously transports a spacecraft 12+ light years in a given direction (the distance is always the same). The jump itself gives any human on the ship euphoria like nothing he or she has ever experiences (the main character compared it to death). At the same time, any alien either dies or goes completely insane during such jump (the aliens have their own, slower, means of FTL). However, two alien races are able to survive the jump with their sanity intact: the Counters (biological computers) and the Kualkua (symbiotic shapeshifters). The former manage this by [[spoiler:putting themselves into a coma by mentally dividing by zero and causing an overflow error]], and the latter by [[spoiler:temporarily pulling the Kualkua collective consciousness out of that particular Kualkua]]. The sequel, ''Star Shadow'', reveals that jump drive is [[spoiler:[[YourMindMakesItReal a product of human belief, not actual science. That is why it only works for humans]]]]. There also exists a network of planets connected by Shadow Gates, with the side effect of the Gates reading you and putting you wherever they deem fit. Geometers have managed to combine both types of FTL travel into one: they take the ship into slow FTL hyperspace and then start jumping using the same method as humans. Apparently, this neither produces euphoria in humans nor is fatal to aliens and allows a ship to cross vast interstellar distances in a matter of hours. The protagonist realizes that, as soon as the Conclave finds out about this, Earth is screwed. [[spoiler:He doesn't know yet that the system won't work without a human.]]** In ''Literature/ALordFromPlanetEarth'' hyperspace behaves pretty normal for FTL flight. But if you happen to use a catapult (one-person emergency FTL device), you experience and contact [[spoiler: God - the future collective consciousness of the sentient races]].** In ''Literature/LineOfDelirium'' hyperspace is pretty much Sci-Fi normal, except for several daredevil stunts pulled by the protagonists. Those are launching an escape pod from hyperspace into regular space (without any guarantee of entering regular space anywhere near a planet) and later holding an entire battleship hostage by threatening to leave hyperspace at light-speed. [[spoiler: The protagonists leave the ship and drop into regular space; ship and crew manage to survive the light speed space entry, thus being propelled into the future by Einstein's laws.]] The first novel also mentions that there's always a chance your ship could randomly blow up in hyperspace, if its interphaser doesn't hold hyperspace ''outside'' the ship. This is likely more of a risk with privately-owned ships.* Pavel Shumil takes the Zero-T-systems of the Strugatski's ''Franchise/NoonUniverse'' and makes them actual 12D ways in our 4D space. At least one inhabitable planet found is actually a shifted Earth. As the coordinates slowly change, a protagonist is left behind.* Creator/WilliamGibson's short story ''Hinterlands'' describes a point in space between Earth and Mars in which space ships radiating energy at "the broadcast frequency of the hydrogen atom" disappear. Sometimes they return, sometimes with some fragment of an alien culture. The alien artefact may be useless or invaluable. But the returning pilots are always dead on arrival or the strongest of them make it through a few weeks of catatonia or drooling madness before committing suicide.* In Creator/DavidDrake's ''Literature/{{RCN}}'' series, ships generate a bubble universe around themselves to travel through the "Matrix" (no relation) of fourth-dimensional space, outside the normal universe where the normal physical laws apply. Too much time spent in the Matrix takes a toll on the human brain, and crews start to see things that aren't there, though it's implied that in some cases they may be seeing into alternate realities rather than hallucinating. Entering and leaving the Matrix is also usually quite unpleasant, and unpleasant in an imaginatively different way each time. Except in ''What Distant Deeps'', where [[spoiler:Adele becomes omniscient]] during one extraction.* In another of Drake's books, ''Starliner'', ships travel through what's officially called "sponge space." Like RCN's Matrix, sponge space took a toll on the mind -- it seems mostly a case of sensory deprivation -- at least of those maintaining the drive systems out on the ship's hull. Informally, it's referred to as "the Cold," and Cold Crews get a bit ''[[AxCrazy warped]]'' from spending so much time out there. They're also hard to discipline: what can their officers do to punish them that's worse than their normal working environment?* In L. E. Modesitt's ''Gravity Dreams'', hyperspace not only requires a TrainingFromHell to be able to navigate through, it also has [[spoiler:a god who wants some reassurance that he is a god.]]* The ''Franchise/DoctorWhoExpandedUniverse'' has lots of stuff about the terrors of the Time Vortex the TARDIS travels through. The series itself, not so much.* The Gap that Stephen R Donaldson's ''Literature/TheGapCycle'' is named after isn't in itself more dangerous than regular space travel, but it ''does'' have some... unfortunate effects on the brains of a certain small percentage of humans that pass through it. This "Gap sickness" can manifest as just about any sort of mental illness, it is entirely incurable, and there is no way to predict who will contract it without actually sending them through the Gap and seeing who goes insane.* ''Literature/TheLostFleet'': Anytime the eponymous fleet enters jump space, the characters always get uneasy feelings and are only too relieved to get out. Jump space is considered so awful that to be thrown out into it is a fate only consigned to those convicted of treason.* In ''Literature/{{Xenocide}}'', a highly advanced A.I. is able to move things instantly from any point in the universe to any other as long as it has a clear understanding of the objects/people it's moving, as well as their origin and destination points. It does this by moving them outside of the universe. The weirdest part is that if a person spends any noticeable length of time "outside", [[spoiler:they can consciously or sub-consciously manifest anything their brain can imagine and bring it back into the real world with them... including people]]. Worse, if [[spoiler:Jane]] is unable to keep all the data about the inanimate objects (living things naturally hold themselves together using [[MinovskyParticle philotes]]), the living things make it back among a chunk of matter that used to be a spaceship. God help you if your destination is the vacuum of space. Also, if [[spoiler:Jane]] miscalculates the destination point, you can end up inside a solid object with no way out.* John Meaney's ''Pilot'' stories have mu-space, a fractal space which normal humans have to be sedated for travel through and which has all sorts of weird properties. The Pilots who can traverse it while conscious either have to have their eyes replaced with sockets for computer attachments, or naturally have weird eyes (the first of these is the result of a Pilot giving birth whilst in mu space, and the trait then spreads). The Pilots are implied to be drifting away from what we would recognise as a human perspective.* ''Literature/TheDresdenFiles'' has the Nevernever, an alternate dimension/spirit world that exists alongside our reality. The Nevernever's distances are non-linear and often connected to points in the real world, meaning that it's possible to go into it, walk five feet, and emerge a destination thousands of miles away. Unfortunately, the closest parts of the Nevernever to our world are the lands of Fairie, which are populated by all kinds of dangerous beasts and hostile sentient beings. It's also entirely possible that you will open a portal to the Nevernever and emerge beneath a lake of acid or inside a volcano.* The ''Franchise/{{Dune}}'' universe has hyperspace only being successfully navigated by, well, Navigators, who are creatures so addicted to Spice that it's physically transformed them into something totally alien. The addiction gives them the ability to see into the future and plot a course that will bring them to their destination. One wonders how many ships were lost before they figured out the whole "Mutate the volunteer" aspect. According to the [[Literature/LegendsOfDune prequel series]] written by the son (Brian Herbert) of the author (Frank Herbert) of the original trilogies, a lot. Specifically, because of the anti-machine backlash happening during the [[RobotWar Butlerian Jihad]], Norma Cenva, the inventor of this new type of FTL (another, slower, type exists) is forbidden from installing computers into the ships to reduce the risk of CriticalExistenceFailure. Thus, the loss rate is ''20%''. One out of five ships never returns. Considering the armada's ships are mostly crewed by religious fanatics, they don't care.* ''Literature/{{Dragonlance}}'' has a very tragic example of this. In the Age of Dreams, the Wizard Conclave created five portals to link the five Towers of High Sorcery. Unfortunately, in creating an extraplanar means of rapid transit between them, they also unknowingly created a link to the Abyss. Takhisis, never one to miss an opportunity to come into the world, gave a black-robed mage a dream in which she told him that she was a beautiful woman trapped in another plane and that he was the only one who could save her. He fell for it completely. Ever wonder how the Third Dragon War that Huma fought in started? Well...* Vonda N. McIntyre's short story "Aztecs" (later incorporated into ''Superluminal'') had a variation where the subjective measurement of time was affected; people conscious through the trip tended to die of old age. Passengers were thus kept in [[HumanPopsicle suspended animation]] for the trip to keep them safe. For the captain, however, the trick is to ensure the captain has no method of marking the passage of time. No clocks, and the captain has to have his [[BodyHorror heart removed and replaced with a quiet rotary pump]], ensuring they have no heartbeat they can use to measure time with. Most captains keep the ashes of their own hearts to remind them of the permanency of this... hence the title of the original short story.* In ''Literature/AWrinkleInTime,'' tessering across the fifth dimension is a terrifying experience when done by Mrs. Which. [[spoiler:When Meg's father does it...]]* In ''The Tomorrow War'' by Alexander Zorich travelers in "X-matrix" suffer sensory deprivation. Only a mild annoyance for people who go through this regularly, yes. But less experienced travelers tend to hate it and are mentally destabilized for some time. May also be the reason of [[SpaceMadness spaceship claustrophobia]] being a much worse problem than on submarines.* Vladislav Krapivin's ''Great Crystal'' series has a few people able to move between the worlds [[Literature/TheChroniclesOfAmber Amber]]-style. A few of them learn the trick [[GiverOfLameNames they call]] "direct transition". The traveler's personal space tears off the rest of continuum and soon pops up elsewhere -- at a random place in random world, if he's out of ideas. It's mostly safe, but most avoid doing this, simply because before it comes the ability to percieve and understand that at an arm's length in any direction there's ''nothingness'' as complete as it gets -- not even airless space. Those painting it with mental representations of possible entry points still feel the same. The boy who first in the books did it [[BringMyBrownPants needed new pants]] after one of first jumps and another one passed out hard when moved forcibly by the first... upon losing cat-and-mouse they played with SecretPolice in his CrapsaccharineWorld just for giggles -- they weren't easily scared.* In ''The Bad Place'' by Creator/DeanKoontz, one character has uncontrolled subconscious teleportation abilities. It wouldn't be this trope, except that he frequently visits an alien planet where space lobsters are used to grow red diamonds. Not to mention, every time he jumps, he suffers a small TeleporterAccident.* While not hyperspace per se, the dimension dwelt in by the Hounds of Tindalos (in Frank Belknap Long and later H.P. Lovecraft) is a pretty nasty place to be, as if you travel through it, you set the Hound on you. And as they can enter the world through any angle, and will never stop; this is bad to say the least.* Creator/RandallGarrett's [[http://www.gutenberg.org/files/32347/32347-h/32347-h.htm "Time Fuze"]] has the first team to use the hyperdrive jump to Alpha Centauri only to find the star blowing up. When they try to get back to Earth, it turns out [[spoiler:the drive makes suns blow up when it departs as well as when it arrives]].* Creator/PhilipJoseFarmer in "The Unreasoning Mask" posits a means of FTL travel that doesn't harm the passengers, but is [[DoomsdayDevice Very Bad]] for the universe: in fact [[spoiler:it may have destroyed several earlier universes]]* In "Common Time" by Creator/JamesBlish, a person travelling in "over-drive" experiences first experiences his mind (and therefore his perception of time) operating thousands of times faster than his body, and later his body operating vastly faster than his mind - both potentially fatal conditions. (Several earlier expeditions failed to return). It then gets [[MindScrew weirder]], and the whole thing is possibly [[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Common_Time#Symbolism kinky]].* In Creator/AnneMcCaffrey's ''[[Literature/TheShipWho Brainship]]'' series, FTL drive is pretty tame -- some people react to it with temporary nausea, and there's always a lingering sense of unreality, but it's perfectly normal and safe. Singularity drive, on the other hand... involves "translating" between two linked, mapped nodes instantaneously by taking a mathematical jaunt through several realities, all of which inflict temporary body horrors on the poor passengers. The usual transit time is on the order of seconds. However, sometimes ships get stuck, at which the horrors can last for ''weeks''. One notable example involved a brainship having to burn out dozens of powerful processors, put down a mutiny, and finish the translation using a handful of known good processors (including the graphics processor for the screens and a processor or two donated from the body of a cyborg), all while looping between two realities that turned your teeth to rotten mush in one and long stabbing needles in another.* While there is nothing inherently bad about hypersphere in ''Literature/TheHistoryOfTheGalaxy'', it's essentially an empty dimension (or anomaly, as the author prefers to call it). It's pitch black there. The only navigational tool that works in hypersphere is the mass-detector, which measures the "energy pressure" around the ship to determine what sort of objects lie in normal space. Early human hyperdrive-equipped ships were flying totally blind, and many were never heard from again (either they ended up in empty systems or materialized inside stellar bodies). All others ended up in random star systems with not enough power for a second jump, resulting in a lot of {{Lost Colon|y}}ies. The first human ship to end up in hypersphere wasn't even equipped with a hyperdrive. It was humanity's first extrasolar vessel, the colony ship ''Alpha'' (also the largest ship ever built). Propelled by three powerful fusion drives, it was supposed to accelerate to .5c on its way to Alpha Centauri. The drives activate... and the sheer power tears a hole in space/time, sucking the ship into hypersphere.\\\Additionally, hypersphere is an actual sphere (with the galaxy wrapping around it). At its center, the so-called 10th energy level, there is an energy imprint of the galaxy, around which orbit a number of planets, only one of which is habitable. No electronic device works there due to the "energy pressure" of the entire galaxy converging. However, the same pressure also enables some interesting abilities in living beings, many of these bordering on magical.* ''Literature/TheDivingUniverse'' has perfectly safe and reasonable FTL. However, it also has Foldspace, which is far faster but also far more dangerous. The Fleet tried not to enter Foldspace except in the case of an emergency, because not every ship that goes in comes back out — and even if they do, there's no guarantee that they'll come out in the right place or time. After the Fleet passed into legend, Foldspace drives became a LostTechnology -- poorly understood by those who stumbled across them, and thus even ''more'' spectacularly dangerous to meddle with.* In the ''Literature/ConfederationOfValor'' series, Susumi Space requires very specific calculations in order to successfully traverse it. Making even a tiny small mistake can destroy a ship completely. Which is the initial reason why everyone is pissed at [[IntrepidReporter Presit]] in ''The Better Part of Valor'': in [[GoingForTheBigScoop looking for a big scoop]], she follows the Navy warship ''Berganitan'' through a Susumi jump, risking not only her own ship and crew, but the ''Berganitan'' as well.* Tom Godwin's ''[[http://www.gutenberg.org/etext/25628 The Nothing Equation]]'' is a very creepy version of this trope. [[NothingIsScarier The title should give you a clue about what makes it frightening.]]* JerryOltion's Captains Table TOS novel ''Where Sea Meet Sky'' involves a part about an unshielded warp jump on a living creature with a ''biological'' warp drive.* The novel ''The Deacon's Tale'', sets in the ''VideoGame/SwordOfTheStars'' universe, reveals that traveling through Hiver gates is harmful to other races. The side effects can range from simple nausea to death by miocardial infarction. It's possible they're simply not calibrated for non-Hivers or that the Hivers have genetically modified themselves to survive the process.* In one of the expanded universe novels based on the ''Franchise/{{Alien}}'' films, it's mentioned that the reason people enter cryogenic sleep during space travel is because being awake while a ship is traveling at faster-than-light speeds "does ugly things to your mind." It's also mentioned that, as part of their training, Colonial Marine recruits are required to stay awake during a brief [=FTL=] jump so they can experience it firsthand.* Creator/GregEgan's ''Literature/{{Orthogonal}}'' trilogy applies this trope to [[TitleDrop orthogonal]] space, clusters of matter traveling along a different trajectory through time compared to regular matter. All matter acts as {{Antimatter}} in relation to orthogonal matter, which means that even orthogonal ''air'' is MadeOfExplodium. [[spoiler:The trick is to go in exactly the ''opposite'' direction through time as the other matter--then the observer and the matter have MerlinSickness respective to each other, but are otherwise perfectly safe to touch.]]* Traveling through grimspace in ''Literature/TheSiranthaJaxSeries'' is considerably faster than the earlier method of FasterThanLightTravel, "straight space", but carries much higher dangers. A ship that enters grimspace without a crewman with the J-gene (a "jumper") cannot read the beacons placed by [[{{Precursors}} the Makers]] to guide ships to inhabitable star systems, and will likely be lost forever. Grimspace is hard on jumpers, too: it's a FantasticDrug to them, and long-term SideEffectsInclude brain lesions that eventually result in jumpers jumping and becoming brain-dead on emergence, at which point their ship-mates usually MercyKill them. It's called "navigator burnout syndrome" or NBS, and it means jumpers rarely live to their 30s.* FTL travel in the Literature/HeecheeSaga isn't dangerous in and of itself, but nobody knows how it actually ''works'' (all FTL ships were left behind by ThePrecursors and they didn't leave any instructions manuals or maps). Further, the manner FTL functions leaves a lot to be desired. For one thing every FTL starship only has one preset destination, making travel a dangerous risk; there's no telling what you'll find on the other side and also no way of telling how long the trip will take, so you'd better pack as many supplies as you freaking can. There's multiple times mentioned where ships came back filled with the corpses of it's crew because they ran out of food and water mid-jump. Oh and nobody knows what happens to ships that get pushed off-course; they're certainly never seen again...[[/folder]]

[[folder:Live-Action TV]]* Hyperspace in ''Series/BabylonFive'', while less scary than most hyperspaces in this entry, is still rather nasty. It has random currents that can throw you off course rather quickly if you have a navigational failure, no landmarks to navigate by other than the artificial beacons placed by the various races, and there's even some rumors about things living in it. ([[spoiler:They're true, and though some of them are just annoying, there are ''lots'' of things that are [[AlwaysChaoticEvil far from nice]].]]) And then there's the eponymous ''Thirdspace''... Other less nasty but still dangerous problems include freak storms and vortexes that are capable of altering the currents and eddies and throwing ships off course, something that can normally prove fatal. Also, if you try to open a jump point within an already active gate, this will result in a very large explosion.\\\Hyperspace is in actuality a shadow of Realspace. Gravity wells from normal space create the vortices in Hyperspace, and the drift effect is due to the galaxy being constantly in motion. Hyperspace compresses the space-time continuum so everything is exaggerated while travelling through it. Hyperspace beacons constantly need to be readjusted and hyperspace lanes tend to change over the years. Another unnatural effect of Hyperspace is that it boosts the telepathic abilities of any telepath. Travel beyond the galaxy is said to be the hardest thing any one race can accomplish, and only the ancient First Ones have travelled beyond the galactic rim.\\\The First Ones have learned to use hyperspace rather well, with the Vorlons folding a pocket of hyperspace in on itself to hide a frigging enormous armada! The Shadows are even worse, being completely at home in the chaotic hyperspace. They never get lost and don't even need to open jump gates, simply phasing between hyperspace and normal space. In essence, the Shadows are true {{Eldritch Abomination}}s who have made hyperspace their plaything.\\\ And in the ExpandedUniverse there's the Starshards; weapons from a long-ago war, made up of small pieces of neutronium that literally tear hyperspace apart as they travel through it, leaving a trail of realspace behind it like a comet's tail while at the same time warping the eddies in front of it.* ''Franchise/StarTrek'' normally doesn't treat subspace as a bad thing. There are some exceptions, though:** Subspace containing aliens who like vivisecting humans.** Then there's the problem when subspace extrudes into normal space. Basically, being caught in such a flux means trouble. The energies and particles coming from them are generally not healthy, and stresses can tear starships apart. And you can forget about trying to use Warp Drive (indeed, one ''TNG'' episode showed that excessive warp usage was fraying the boundary between space and subspace like an well-trodden carpet). Thus the laser-like focus of the Federation when it comes to Omega molecules (seen in ''[[Series/StarTrekVoyager Voyager]]''): just one of them will rip the space/subspace barrier for a radius of several light years. Get too many of these kinds of holes popping up and you can kiss galactic civilization as you know it goodbye.** Wormholes containing {{Sufficiently Advanced Alien}}s the Bajorans thought of as the prophets. Averted in that they're actually quite nice and keep the wormhole open and stable. The [[EvilTwin Pah]]-[[EldritchAbomination Wraiths]], on the other hand...** The CanonDiscontinuity ''Voyager'' episode "Threshold" almost treated Warp 10 like this, but the actual results were mind-boggling from a logical, biological, and narrative standpoint.** Experimental interphase [[InvisibilityCloak cloaking devices]] (largely different from the regular, completely safe cloaking devices) seem to operate by taking a ship and crew outside of the normal realm of matter and reality, which allows them not only invisibility but the ability to do things such as phase through solid matter. This can go horribly wrong in two different ways. The first is if a person is exposed to the radiation of a damaged device. ''They'' become cloaked. Not only will they be invisible, unable to be seen, they will lack coherence and slip through walls. On a ship, this could mean a sudden jarring motion could send a [[ThrownOutTheAirlock person into space]]. The second is if the cloaking device suddenly stops working as the ship phases through solid matter. [[BodyHorror If a crewmember is lucky, getting stuck in a wall will kill them instantly]]. (Both scenarios were explored in "The Next Phase" and "The Pegasus", respectively: Geordi and Ro are able to fend off a Romulan in the same phase by throwing him out of the ship and into space; and the final resting place of the ''Pegasus'' is inside of an asteroid, half-phased into the rock after the device finally failed.)* ''Series/{{Farscape}}''** Wormholes are treacherous and difficult to navigate, and cause all sorts of tricky problems with time and space and turning into liquid when you don't quite understand them, and are inhabited by bizarre and dangerous creatures- ranging from gigantic phase-shifting serpents to sentient "Pathfinders" of dubious morality. On the other hand, one episode dealt with the dangers of Starburst, which is a short-range emergency FTL technology that works by temporarily slipping into another dimension and coming out pretty quickly. Somehow, the ship Moya gets stuck and splayed out in other dimensions -- one of which causes mind-splitting noise, another which causes visual pain, and a third which causes elation and euphoria, in addition to the normal one -- and has to be reassembled by moving all four ships in unison through the dimension while avoiding the interdimensional gatekeeper monster... thing. The problem with that particular starburst involved Moya's pregnancy cumulated with other labor complications. As of some time after [[spoiler:Talyn's birth]], it is still said him starbursting would be dangerous. [[spoiler:He does it even before properly learning to fly, though.]]** However, the normal mode of FTL travel for all ships, including Moya, is the Hetch Drive. It appears to move the ship through normal space at FTL speeds, isn't brought up all that much, and appears to be entirely safe.* ''Series/TheTomorrowPeople'' were presumably safe when [[{{Teleportation}} jaunting]] through hyperspace. If they jaunted into hyperspace without protective gear, their bodies would be annihilated. Additionally, hyperspace was seen as a place where time had no meaning, but you'd return to your own time upon leaving. That is, unless some major temporal screw-up had occurred, which ran the possibility of freezing time temporarily.* ''Series/DoctorWho''** The [[TimeTravel Time Vortex]] in the [[TheVerse Whoniverse]] has been shown to be hazardous to objects that travel through it without proper transport, even killing companion Jack Harkness. It also hosts a few creatures, such as the Chronovores and other [[EldritchAbomination beings]], and, as of ''New Who'', [[ClockRoaches Reapers]]. The vortex is viewable directly from a special window on the Doctor's homeworld called the "[[NamesToRunAwayFromReallyFast untempered schism]]" where one could actually stare at the raw power of time and space, as the Doctor described it. He said that all Time Lord children were instructed to stare at it until they either became inspired, went insane or ran away. The Doctor of course, ran away. (Although there's an argument to be made for all three.) TheMaster, [[AxCrazy on the]] [[WoobieDestroyerOfWorlds other hand...]]** Travel between {{Alternate Universe}}s requires traveling through the Void, a realm which the Doctor describes as containing ''[[NothingIsScarier absolutely nothing]]''. "No up, no down, no light, no dark, no ''time''". Someone using a specialist "[[EldritchStarship void ship]]" can sit in the Void through the end of the universe and the start of the next, and while the Time Lords called it the Void and [[HumanoidAbomination the Eternals]] called it the Howling, some just call it Hell.* Franchise/StargateVerse** Played with in the pilot of ''Series/StargateAtlantis'': Lt. Ford hazes the New Guy (Sheppard) by telling him that Gate travel is horribly painful... then drops the act, admits it's actually a lot of fun, and throws himself backward through the event horizon like it's a carnival ride.** Played straighter in the original ''Film/{{Stargate}}'' movie and the first episode of ''Series/StargateSG1'', where travel through the Stargate was disorientating, made some people feel sick and everyone came through the other side freezing cold, no matter what the temperature on either side of the gate was. Oh, and it threw you out the receiving gate, no matter how fast you entered it. After the pilot of [=SG1=], ''Children of the Gods'', this was all dropped. This was later explained as being due to Earth's lack of a Dial Home Device, or DHD. Normally, these regularly "update" the Stargates in the Gate Network to compensate for stellar drift. Since Earth's Stargate didn't have one, it was slightly out of sync with the rest of the network until they learned to compensate for it. This resulted in the rough ride. After this, there was only such a rough ride to the home territory of the Asgard (the first eight-symbol super-distant address) and to the ''Destiny'' at the beginning of ''Series/StargateUniverse'' (even farther than that!)* ''Series/{{Andromeda}}'s'' Slipstream network isn't particularly scary, but it's like an ever-shifting maze that requires insane amounts of intuition to take the right path and incredible reflexes to steer in. Which is why computer systems cannot fly in it; they have no intuition, so they always only have a 50:50 chance of picking the right path at each branch (and your average trip through Slipstream involves a lot of these branches, so the odds slip with each turn), while lifeforms have between 70% and 99% success rate.\\An early episode showed what happens when you put a being who can predict probable futures into the pilot's seat. Trance ends up screwing up so bad, that it throws the ship 300 years back in time. Later on, though, she can be seen piloting without problems. Given what is revealed about Trance's nature later on, it's entirely possible she meant for the time jump to happen. Another episode involves a probe sent centuries before in order to prowl slipstream and map it out. Supposedly, a complete map of the network would allow efficient, safe passage to any ship, whether piloted by a living being or not.** When ''Andromeda'' lost her original crew [[spoiler:during the first encounter with the Magog]], it took her years (if not decades) to get back to Commonwealth space by making {{blind jump}}s without an organic pilot.** The [[AIIsACrapshoot Consensus of Parts]] uses BrainInAJar in order to navigate Slipstream.* In ''Series/TheOuterLimits1995'' episode "In the Blood", explorers on a spaceship are trapped in "trans-space," a hyperspace-like dimension that turns out to be the literal bloodstream of the universe, which is actually a living being. The "scary" part comes from the universe's defense mechanisms being similar to those of humans and actively [[SeekerWhiteBloodCells seeking to destroy foreign bodies]].[[/folder]]

[[folder:Music]]* Music/VanDerGraafGenerator goes with the NothingIsScarier version in "Pioneers Over C.". A group of astronauts attempt to use FasterThanLightTravel to explore the cosmos, and when they finally break the light barrier, they enter infinite nothingness, losing all sense of time and awareness, unable to return to reality as we know it.[[/folder]]

[[folder:Tabletop Games]]* ''TabletopGame/{{Warhammer 40000}}'' is very explicit about the "scary" part.** Faster-than-light travel is achieved by jumping into a parallel dimension called the Warp or the Immaterium, which is essentially the Afterlife. A [[YourMindMakesItReal manifestation]] of the [[TheHeartless thoughts and emotions of all conscious life]], also the location of [[OurSoulsAreDifferent everyone's souls]] and the origin, power source and curse of all PsychicPowers, but also a {{Hell}} brimming with [[TheLegionsOfHell soul-eating daemons]] and [[EldritchAbomination dark Gods]]. Ships need special Gellar Fields to keep the entities that swarm through the Immaterium from passing right through the hull and feasting on the minds and souls of all within. Even with the Gellar Field, the ship needs to be covered in holy baroque symbols to prevent daemons from blowing it up, or worse. The normal passage of time is also completely irrelevant; it's impossible to know the exact age of people who do a lot of Warp travel, it's possible (though rare) for a vessel to disappear within the Warp for centuries or even ''millennia'' despite the crew only experiencing a few months of difference, and there is at least one documented case of someone entering the Warp and exiting at the same location ''before they left''. One ork Waaaagh! did so as well, but since the future warboss killed the past warboss in order to have his favorite gun twice, the Waaagh! disbanded due to the confusion.*** For bonus logical headaches, consider that the accidental time-travelers were responding to a distress signal (also sent through the warp) from a ship that was surrounded by enemy vessels... when they popped out, the ship they were aiding was nowhere to be seen, but they were in the middle of an enemy fleet, so they sent out a distress signal...*** It was mentioned a few times that Gellar Field can only protect from small predators. The only thing that saves the ship from bigger fish is that they don't notice or don't care about puny humans. Occasionally they do and then a lifeless husk will join thousands ships that were lost in the warp. ** The Tau, due to lacking any psykers or a strong Warp presence, can't access the Warp like most other factions, and are restricted to the "shallows" of the Warp, "skimming" it instead of immersing their vessels any "deeper" (apparently SpaceIsAnOcean metaphors are plentiful when describing the Warp, but metaphors are the only effective method of describing a realm of illogical thought). While this means painfully slow interstellar travel even by the standards of the setting, it runs much less risk of daemons raping the flat bit of your neck where your head used to be, although it still has its dangers. Unfortunately this also means that the Tau have less understanding about the dangers of the Warp then Humans or Eldar do and even less understanding about the forces in it. Supposedly, they tried to duplicate the Imperium's Warp technology, but eventually decided "Screw this. Too many tentacles." *** The main problem for Tau is that their species don't have psykers and navigators, who are absolutely necessary to navigate through the warp with any degree of success. ** Even staying out of the Warp doesn't mean escaping this trope. Sometimes, [[NegativeSpaceWedgie Warp/realspace overlaps]] (known as Warp Storms or Warp Rifts) are generated that can swallow planets, star systems, or even entire sectors of space; the largest, the Eye of Terror, is ''thousands of light years'' in diameter. It's never a good idea to be on any planet caught anywhere near one of these, as not only does [[RealityIsOutToLunch physics take an extended vacation]], creating a lovely little WorldOfChaos, but the denizens of the Warp can freely manifest in an overlap, leaving them with plenty of time for Fun. As luck would have it, warp storms sometimes have beneficial effects as well. At one point the Imperium of Man found a Stone-Age alien species on an uncharted world, and as per normal procedure tasked forces to exterminate them. A warp storm blew up and rendered the star system off limits for about 6,000 years. Then the storm dissipated and the Imperium tried again, only to discover that in the interim the aliens in question, the previously mentioned Tau, had become a spacefaring culture more technologically advanced than the Imperium and fended off the incursion quite handily.** The Eldar webway tunnels are passages through what is essentially another dimension between the Materium and the Immaterium, and though nicer than the Warp they're still quite nasty. Whereas the Warp is pure chaos, the Webway is more akin to AlienGeometries; rational and internally consistent, yet utterly alien. One of the Primarchs was lost trying to navigate it, and Commorragh, capital city of the Dark Eldar hidden deep within the webway, is an EldritchLocation with architecture that makes ''Film/{{Inception}}'' look reasonable.** Of course, being ''40 K'', some factions just don't care about the mind-breaking horrors inherent to the Warp. The Orks coat their vessels in "teef" to ward off daemons (which work [[ClapYourHandsIfYouBelieve because Orks believe it should]]), but even if that doesn't work daemonic incursions are treated as a way of [[BloodKnight breaking up the tedium of long trips]]. Chaos followers have a much easier time navigating the home realm of their patron deities, but they still need Gellar fields to prevent daemons from coming to collect on [[DealWithTheDevil their pacts]]. And the sheer might of the Tyranid HiveMind plays havoc with the Warp and its denizens, meaning only the most powerful daemons can go anywhere near them, and they can't fight an entire hive fleet by themselves anyway.** Last but not least, the Necrons utilize impossibly advanced technology so they can simply ignore the warp. Their take on FTL actually works by going faster than light rather than taking a short-cut, plus as a civilisation whose people are made of living metal, they have much less problems related to warp sickness. Of note are their attempts to get the warp to influence their bodies and flawlessly combine metal and flesh (something only Chaos has managed yet) which go seldomly lucky. However it seems easier for them to just use the Webway.* ''TabletopGame/{{Warhammer}}'' features the Paths of the Old Ones, a series of pocket dimension "hubs" connected to each other and to real-world gates by "tunnels" through the realm of magic. Since the Old Ones disappeared, the Paths have been tainted by Chaos. The tunnels are even worse, containing "reality bubbles" that travelers can be trapped in. These may vary from alternate timelines to a daemon's personal playroom. And if you take a wrong turn in the Paths, you may just end up in the Realms of Chaos. Or worse, the Warp.* The game ''TabletopGame/FadingSuns'' uses an inversion: hyperspace (what is between the Stargates) actually is the ''safe'' way. The real problem is that interstellar space (the traditional boundary is the orbit of system's Stargate) is filled with shapeless Cthulhoid monstrosities going by the lovely name of [[NamesToRunAwayFromReallyFast Void]] [[SpaceIsAnOcean Kraken]]. (Something about the star, at least for some part of the star's life cycle repels the Void Krakens. The size of this safe zone varies with each system.) Still, spaceships jumping through hyperspace need to be protected by special shields, because otherwise people experience a strongly addictive quasi-religious epiphany. And fun stuff: before the discovery of Sol System's gate, there were several [[HumanPopsicle sleeper ships]] sent out. One of them was referenced in canon. The rest... Well, the general assumption is [[FridgeHorror it's better not to think of what could have happened to the passengers]].* While not used for space travel, Porté sorcery in the RPG ''TabletopGame/SeventhSea'' involves tearing a bleeding hole in reality, stepping through into an hyperspace-like dimension, and tearing open another hole to get back. No-one knows what this dimension is like, because Porté sorcerers keep their eyes closed while inside it. Within this dimension, voices try to persuade or trick the sorcerer into opening their eyes. It's assumed that the sorcerers who never came back made the mistake of opening their eyes. It's not at all related that the country where most Porté sorcerers live also has [[spoiler:ghosts without eyes or hands that appear in its mirrors]]. No, surely not. In later supplemental material, it is revealed that [[spoiler:nearly all magic in the world of Theah weakens a barrier in a shadowy world that keeps an army of eldritch abominations at bay, and that every use of Porté magic to rip a hole in reality also rips a corresponding hole in the barrier.]]* In ''TabletopGame/{{Traveller}}'' different cultures have different customs and/or superstitions about it. Among them, Vilani dim their lights (from when having enough power to go into jump was an issue), Aslan clans light a sacramental candle, Vargr, as the [[ChaoticNeutral violent types]], beat up one of their crewmates chosen for the honor, and the Droyne use special coins. Jump space is not so much feared as it is weird. If a jump works wrong one could be misjumped to a random point, which could mean anywhere. If it works really wrong, one stays in jumpspace, and no one knows what happens. Technically, one only stays in Jumpspace for a few trillion (subjective) years. Long enough for protons, stable as they are, to decay and, 168 objective hours or so later, all that emerges is a flash of hard radiation.* And the utterly forgotten 80's RPG ''Space Quest'' had N-Space filled to the bursting with Voidsharks, "Temblons" (think kraken with tractor-beam tentacles) and other horrors that all seemed to find carbon based life a tasty treat.* ''TabletopGame/{{Rifts}}'': Regular FTL travel is fairly simple and straightforward, if somewhat anemic as regards speed. Phase drives, however, are derived from the same technology and magic that the Prometheans use. They use this technology to shut portals and gates down on top of ships that are coming in, a fairly horrific action. But then there are the Rift drives. Though they normally travel through a dimension called the Flux Dimension, anyone who has played Rifts know that they're prone to all sorts of horrible things happening...* Given a nod in ''TabletopGame/BattleTech'', where the Kearny-Fuchida jump drive is occasionally poorly looked upon. This is, of course, thanks to a long track record of damn near epic foul-ups that have happened. Time-lost ships, ships that have emerged with massive holes that look like they've been bitten, ships emerging without crew, ships that jumped too close to another ship and were fused, ships where the same happened and the still-living crew were found literally embedded in the bulkheads, and some ships just plain disappearing. Never mind the fact that the [[ChurchMilitant Word of Blake]] apparently figured out a way to keep a ship in hyperspace so their recruits have a more [[EverythingTryingToKillYou interesting]] environment to learn in. And it has already been established that looking out a porthole during a jump is just plain stupid...\\\The things listed above are the exceptions to the rule -- K-F Drives are 98% safe, as long as the capacitors don't blow. However, the understood mechanics of jump travel are almost as bad as the parts that aren't understood. Every single time a ship jumps, heat is manifested at the destination prior to the ship showing up. The more mass being jumped, the longer and hotter. But K-F Drives are instantaneous. This means that every time you jump, you're shunting waste heat into the past. For stupendously huge ships, that means your jump effectively starts before you even decide it's necessary, and that Doctor Kearny and Doctor Fuchida not only made space travel possible, but snapped the space time continuum (and possibly Thermal Dynamics) over their collective knees. It's said there are two type of Jump Scientists. One who can recite the theory backwards and forth but make little headway in it... And those who are completely insane but in-between their ramblings they make discoveries.\\\One of the most dangerous things about the KF drive is what happens when a ship jumps: Any other ship within a radius of about one hundred kilometers will be shredded, at various levels of completeness from "kind of intact" to "on a molecular level" with the higher end being the norm. Though the process is instant, it's been noted that on occasion a destroyed ship will continue to transmit for several seconds after the jump flash ends.\\\The SLDF discovered that any trip via K-F Drive made all of their attempts at drone warship AI suffer what is described as a "paranoid psychotic break" in which they would lock out all communications and see everything that moved as a hostile that was actively attacking them. Any K-F deployment of drones had to be conducted with the AI powered down, then reactivated by a caretaker crew on arrival.* The Hedge in ''TabletopGame/ChangelingTheLost'' can serve as a means of more expedient travel between long distances, provided one is willing to enter an ever-shifting maze and brave the dangers therein. True to the warped logic of [[TheFairFolk its owners]], the time it takes to get somewhere depends more on [[TravelingAtTheSpeedOfPlot what happens along the way]] than on actual distance, meaning that getting from Miami to Tucson might require more time (and bloodshed) than from Miami to London. In the Infinite Macabre setting, it's made explicit that yes, the Hedge can be used for interstellar travel, though the base time for navigation is longer.* ''TabletopGame/EldritchSkies'' lives and breaths this trope. As it turns out, the reason why people tend to go mad in the future of the Franchise/CthulhuMythos is ''not'' because of [[GoMadFromTheRevelation secrets man was not meant to know]]. Rather, it's due to exposure to the [[EldritchAbomination hyperspatial entities]], and hyperspace itself is TheCorruption. As per ''[[LovecraftLite Eldritch Skies]]'', however, the [[CosmicHorrorStory expected role]] this would play is averted: the mental effects don't get really bad until Level 4 exposure, Level 1 gives you PsychicPowers and anything lower than [[WasOnceAMan Level 5]] is treatable.* The canal network in Heaven's Reach, one of the alternate ''TabletopGame/{{Exalted}}'' settings in ''Shards'', is a sufficiently nasty place that it contains TheFairFolk, who dwell in the crazy-world that is the Wyld in the core setting, and all ships come with anima circuits to keep them from meeting horrific and bizarre fates. While most of the heavily travelled routes have had the evil kicked out of them over the years, the routes that were forgotten after the Malfean War have not.* ''TabletopGame/DungeonsAndDragons''** In the ''TabletopGame/TombOfHorrors'', going astral or ethereal while in the title tomb is not advisable. At all. [[spoiler:It's an excellent way to get set upon and flayed alive by Type I-IV Demons]].** In the ''TabletopGame/{{Spelljammer}}'' setting, the space between the Crystal Spheres is called the Phlogiston. While not as disturbing as other examples on this page, it's still dangerous. Besides some nasty creatures living in "The Flow", the multicolored "matter" that pervades it is extremely inflammable. Even a candle will cause a small fireball; any form of fire magic is extremely unadvised there. It as also some weird effects on living beings, like putting asphyxiating creatures into a coma rather than dying. Some travelers have tried using this property to spare resources while cruising the Phlogiston's currents, but there's no guarantee that the subjects would wake up.* Fasa's old Renegade Legion setting was an interesting example. Tachyon Space wasn't scary per se, but normal matter wasn't capable of coping with it. If a jump lasted too long, you'd melt into a puddle of base elements before exploding into a shower of tachyons.* ''TabletopGame/StarsWithoutNumber'': trying to use a spike drive without someone on duty at all times is a ''really bad idea''. In the sense that you will likely never be seen again.* In ''TabletopGame/EclipsePhase'', the [[PortalNetwork Pandora Gates]] created by the [=TITANs=] can be... unpredictable. Stable connections will sometimes spontaneously [[PortalCut shut down mid-transit]], objects and gatecrashers occasionally disappear and never come out the other side, and exposure to the gates themselves can cause [[SanitySlippage hallucinations and psychological side effects]]. And while according to transhumanity's understanding of their function, transit should be instantaneous, travelers sometimes report experiencing subjective hours or even days in a [[VoidBetweenTheWorlds black void]]. Some gatecrashers say they heard whispering in the darkness, some recount terrifying experiences of encountering monstrous presences, and an unlucky few even come out the other side of the gate as a gibbering heap, their sanity ripped away by the transport.* In ''TabletopGame/{{Deadlands}}'', the Hunting Grounds (the astral plane or the afterlife) double as hyperspace; the one and only human starship designed by Dr. Hellstromme used it for interstellar travel. If you are thinking Warhammer 40K or Event Horizon, you are right. The ship, unlike the Event Horizon, did have some form of Gellar field, but shabby and inefficient, which makes a trip aboard it terrible but survivable.[[/folder]]

[[folder:Theatre]]* Subverted hilariously in Qui Nguyen's play ''Fight Girl Battle World'', in which [[spoiler:the Human is told to brace for hyperspace, which then turns out to be funky hip-hop music. Everyone bobs their head in time. The human eventually catches on.]][[/folder]]

[[folder:Video Games]]* Although not technically hyperspace, the plot of the ''VideoGame/{{Doom}}'' series revolves around teleporters that work by routing the teleported matter through Hell itself -- the demons eventually notice the unexpected entry and even less expected exits and come through the teleporters themselves. In ''[[VideoGame/{{Doom}} Doom 3]]'', it's specifically stated that the Martian civilization's use of this technology nearly drove them into extinction, and it took a HeroicSacrifice on the part of their entire species to send the demons back and close up the portals again before they could conquer the universe. And then humans came along and [[SealedEvilInACan Unsealed the Can]].\\\As with ''Film/EventHorizon'', ''Doom'' is itself often jokingly cited as an example of ancient history within the ''Warhammer 40k'' universe... which would mean the Doomguy has to be The Emperor... Oh hells yeah! If the demonic invasion wasn't bad enough even travelling though a portal to another place on Mars can cause paranoia and insanity. Makes sense, since the hyperspace tunnel appears to be a bloody tunnel filled with screaming.* ''VideoGame/HalfLife''** ''Videogame/HalfLife1'' has a similar premise: Xen is a parallel dimension that looks as if bits of planet and atmosphere, as well as predatory xenofauna, were transported there at random. Teleporters need to pass their signal through a Xen relay in order to return their loads to normal space. The relay is initially (when the technology was first created) a big machine attached to a crystal on Xen, but is subsequently "compressed" all the way to nothing; ''Videogame/{{Half-Life 2}}'' tells us that rag-tag Resistance teleporters simply swing around Xen like a dimensional sligshot, making teleportation cheaper and a bit safer.** On the other hand, Combine teleportation takes the hard way and rips a hole in the universe. It does have some advantages, like the Combine being able to go to any universe they choose and wherever in a given universe, but teleportation relying on Xen is cheaper and uses much less machinery, as well as able to perform intradimensional travel (as opposed to Combine teleportation which is only capable of travel between dimensions). Some factions can even use it without machinery at all, like the G-Man, who conveniently disappears through what is either teleportation or a crapload of hidden doors before you ever get close. Also, the Vortigaunts seem to like where/when/whatever plane of existence the G-Man keeps using and taking Gordon to, so much so as to wrench him back into reality from it once or twice.* The ''Videogame/{{Warcraft}}'' universe has the Twisting Nether, a realm that connects every world to one another. To those who know how to use its powers, it can act as a doorway between worlds. In its natural state it is the opposite of worlds, with mutable laws of physics defined by each individual and little sense of reason. Recently, however, it has become a major haven for the [[TheLegionsOfHell Burning Legion]], who use it to punch holes into new worlds or intercept travelers passing through it.* ''VideoGame/{{Wolfenstein|2009}}'' has The Black Sun Dimension, which is basically a small-ish pocket Universe being kept from collapsing by a source of unlimited power at its center, The Black Sun. The Veil is a barrier between our universe and the Black Sun dimension, through which Black Sun energy occasionally leaks in the form of energy pools. Oh, did we mention that the energy has the property of horrifically... ''altering'' whoever comes into contact with it, unless they use a precisely harmonized portal? There's even a sort of fauna, native to the Veil: the Geist, a species of monstrous insects that exist out-of-phase with our dimensions and can only be interacted with in the Veil... Unless you're really stupid and attract their attention, at which point all bets are off.* ''VideoGame/StarControl''** In this universe, Hyperspace is quite nice. Quasispace (Hyperspace's Hyperspace) is even nicer! But God help you if you use "Dimensional Fatigue" technology wrongly. The Androsynth tried it, and they all disappeared overnight. There are no more Androsynth, only Orz. [[StarfishAliens Strange creatures]] who are [[StarfishLanguage difficult to understand]], implied to be merely projections of some greater being from Hyperspace's or Quasispace's MirrorUniverse, and will happily kill you if you persist in asking about the Androsynth. Merely trying to research the fate of the Androsynth is enough to attract the attentions of {{Eldritch Abomination}}s.** Also of note is the fact that Hyperspace isn't a total walk in the park; according to the [[AllThereInTheManual backstory]], the shift between dimensions causes intense nausea, much like a hyperactive [[SpaceIsAnOcean space seasickness]]. The eerie background music playing while your ship travels through Quasispace really helps get the "scary place" feeling across. Some of it sounds like the screams or yells of... [[EldritchAbomination something]]. As some of the aliens describe it, Hyperspace is "above" regular space, and Quasi-space is "above" Hyperspace. The Orz come from "below".* In the sequel (of disputed canonicity) to the RTS ''VideoGame/{{Homeworld}}'', ''Homeworld: Cataclysm'', the central enemy came from Hyperspace. This was a little disturbing for everyone, as until then Hyperspace has been thought to be perfectly safe (assuming you had a safe way of getting in and out of it). The Naggarok, an alien exploration vessel using an experimental form of hyperdrive, essentially went 'too deep', or something similar, resulting in it picking up a passenger in the form of a sentient biomatter [[TheVirus virus]].\\\Interestingly, in an early script for ''Homeworld 2'', the radiation clouds from a damaged hyperspace core were instead written as an area of space in which ships would be sucked into fiery tentacled hyperspace gates. The script describes them as "looking like they lead straight into hell". This interpretation would fit well with all the other religious symbolism in the game, but you can see why they dropped it; The radiation shields the Hiigarans eventually implement are much more believable than "portal into hell" shields.* ''VideoGame/StarFox1''** While in StarFox 64 the warp zones are merely shortcuts to other levels, in the first SNES game it was rather different. The first warp zone, the black hole, is kind of like 64's warp gates except you can choose where to go and it's a looping level. The second one however sends Fox into an alternate dimension filled with grinning moons, demonic paper airplanes, classical music, and giant slot machines. This would be a zany joke level if it weren't for the fact that General Pepper asks over the intercom where Fox and his team is, and the inability to complete the level. This implies that the entire Star Fox team is trapped in an alternative dimension, flying until they either run out of fuel or are shot out of the sky, while Corneria is obliterated by Andross and his army.* In ''VideoGame/{{Elite}}'', a trip into hyperspace (or witch-space, as the game calls it) puts you at risk from ambush from Thargoids, who have a technology which allows them to lurk there. In some versions of the game you can force a hyperdrive failure by holding full pitch and roll while jumping, but you'd have to be either suicidal or very well armed to attempt it.* In ''Frontier: Elite II'', mis-jumps sometimes occur, which usually just results in your ship emerging from Hyperspace too early but still with enough fuel to complete the jump. A severe mis-jump could have you emerge from Hyperspace in uncharted space thousands of light years from any inhabited system while simultaneously turning your hyperdrive into a pile of useless scrap metal. Fun.* In ''VideoGame/{{Xenosaga}}'', the UMN, source of faster than light travel & communications is also the source of the nightmarish creatures known as the Gnosis. This turns out to be because [[spoiler:[[DreamLand it is actually humanity's collective unconscious]].]]* In ''VideoGame/SwordOfTheStars'', the humans and the Zuul use a specific dimension called "nodespace" to allow their ships to ignore the rules of physics. Unfortunately, nodespace is inhabited by EnergyBeings known as "specters", who do ''not'' appreciate the intrusion and will occasionally cross over into real space and eat the population of one of your colonies to display their displeasure. The Zuul are especially at risk because of their manner of accessing nodespace: for an analogy, the spectres' annoyance at humanity would be like if you were sitting at home and someone came streaking through your living room, entering and leaving through your front door -- the Zuul would be the guy who entered your living room by drilling his way through the walls with a pneumatic drill, and exiting by drilling through the wall at the opposite end. [[{{Metaphorgotten}} In the nude.]]\\\In addition, looking directly into Node Space turns out to have really bad psychological side effects, and after a few unfortunate murder-suicides all human ships now shut all external views of their ships while performing node jumps. WordOfGod [[http://www.kerberos-productions.com/forums/viewtopic.php?f=1&t=17929&view=unread#p279177 has said that Zuul find node travel]] ''delicious and deeply comforting'', like ''burrowing into live flesh''. The one and only time a Liir tried to enter nodespace on a human vessel, the second it felt the psychic emanations from nodespace it tore open the ship from the inside to avoid going through. Thankfully everyone onboard was fully suited.** According to ''The Deacon's Tale'' book by Arinn Dembo, traveling through the Hiver [[PortalNetwork gates]] is ''extremely'' painful to a human and can even be fatal. Presumably, this applies to any species without an exoskeleton. There's a reason the races tend to stick to their method of interstellar travel.* The Shadow Shard in ''VideoGame/CityOfHeroes'' is like this, if only because almost all the monsters found in the place are DemonicSpiders. Of course, the landscape is trippy as hell, and that does a lot to turn it into one of the most unused zones in the game.* ''VideoGame/ToeJamAndEarl 2''[='=]s Hyperfunk Zone is a most totally ''jammin''' version of this.* The scariness of subspace in the ''VideoGame/FreeSpace'' series has less to do with subspace itself than the insinuation that using it for FTL travel will cause a horde of enraged StarfishAliens, who may or may not actually live in subspace, with NighInvulnerable spacecraft to come and wipe your species out for their "sin".* The ''VideoGame/{{Halo}}'' universe's hyperspace is known as slipspace. In the early days of FTL travel, technicians sometimes had to repair the drives while in mid-jump, exposing themselves to the "slipstream" and risking injury, death, or even being [[RetGone completely erased from existence]] in the process. Even when the engine isn't operating, there's still a tendency for tools and technicians to turn up missing after a shift. Sometimes ships entering hyperspace will simply never reappear. Time dilation effects are present, which can cause unpredictable delays. It's also implied that slipspace travel has adverse effects on your health, thus the cryopods present on all UNSC vessels. Being ThrownOutTheAirlock simply kicks you back into realspace, though you do get bathed in radiation in the process. Opening a slipspace rift while in an atmosphere creates a massive {{EMP}} pulse and shockwave that can knock down a SpaceElevator. Trying to transition from realspace to slipspace when the slipspace drive isn't fully charged (at least on human ships) causes the ship to be blown into atomized bits.* The ''VideoGame/EveOnline'' expansion ''Apocrypha'' added star systems that are only accessible by wormholes and full of strange, sentient and AlwaysChaoticEvil machines called the Sleepers. This turned out to be a case of GameplayAndStorySegregation: the players found these systems less scary than intended, mapped them, colonized them and deciphered the Sleeper A.I. to safely farm them. {{Canon}}ically, just warping and jumping through stargates are mentally traumatic experiences, to the point where ship crews are either permanently juicing anti-psychotic medication to keep them sane, or else are kept sedated when they're not actually needed for anything. A capsuleer's control pod does grant them immunity to this phenomenon, but considering that it tends to drive the user insane anyway, this could be considered a mixed blessing.* In ''ImmortalDefense'', ''you'' are the reason hyperspace is a scary place, since you're an immortal disembodied spirit with god powers, and you tend to tear apart fleets.* ''Videogame/{{Minecraft}}''** The Halloween update allows players to build a portal to "The Nether", a hellish underworld where every step you take translates to eight steps in the normal world. Where the terrain isn't covered by lava it consists of either a red rock that readily catches on fire or a quicksand textured with ''screaming faces''. The entire dimension is inhabited by herds of zombie pigmen and flying jellyfish who spit exploding fireballs that tear up the landscape and set the rock on fire.** A later update adds another portal which leads players to another dimension called "The End", a dark world which consists entirely of a single FloatingContinent suspended over an endless void, inhabited solely by Endermen and a single Ender Dragon.*** Notably, the End becomes a lot less scary once you realize that 1) a simple bow with a sufficient quantity of arrows will keep you safe from the Dragon as you gradually reduce his health, 2) Endermen are effectively inert if you're wearing a pumpkin, 3) you can farm them in very efficient structures that'll level you from zero to level 30 in less than a minute.* ''VideoGame/DungeonCrawl'' gives us the Abyss, which is intimately tied to translocation spells; there are translocation spells that send a target to the Abyss, and a translocation miscast can send the mage the same way. It's a constantly shifting branch of hell, filled with demons and ruled over by [[ChaoticEvil Lugonu the Unformed]], who grants powers of, naturally, translocation.* In ''[[VideoGame/SamAndMaxFreelancePolice Sam & Max: The Penal Zone]]'', when Sam and Max first use the power of Teleportation (outside the tutorial flashback at the beginning), the two travel through a bizarre multicolored void where Max is a talking skeleton with a creepy voice.-->'''Max:''' ''Enjoying the ride, Sam? A-ha-ha-ha-ha!''\\'''Sam:''' Note to self: when traveling through Max's brain, ''keep your eyes shut.''* ''VideoGame/TheBreach'' refers to this as "the Yellow." It's full of yellow fog, nasty monsters, and strange glowing glyphs, and it's [[PlaceBeyondTime apparently beyond time as well]]. The inhabitants are quite welcoming, but they tend to become [[AxeCrazy enraged]] at people who refuse to [[YouWillBeAssimilated join them]].* In ''VideoGame/BatenKaitos'' the Trail of Souls that links [[{{Cloudcuckoolander}} Mira]] to the rest of the world. The "wavey" black void is liable to get you lost forever in a monster filed dimension if you get lost, and it even freaks out characters who regularly travel it. MotoiSakuraba's [[http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YKe8k8P2FNw music]] sets the tune perfectly.* In ''VideoGame/{{Loom}}'' you and a few other characters have the opportunity to tear open the very fabric of reality and go Outside. While it makes for convenient travel by going from tear to tear, it is very much not safe, as Outside is the dwellingplace of the dead, some of whom are not nice people at all.* In ''Franchise/MassEffect'', the Mass Effect Relays are not entirely mapped out by the species of the galaxy, since they were supposedly designed by the Protheans ([[spoiler: "supposedly" because they were actually created by the [[EldritchAbomination Reapers]]]]) who did not really leave any complete maps as to where they all go, and an explorer has no idea what is really on the other side. Used to be, when a new Mass Relay was discovered the Citadel Council would immediately send out an explorer team to leap to the other side and map out the Relay's destination. This came to a stop however when one exploration team discovered the [[InsectoidAliens rachni]]. The ensuing [[BugWar war]] lasted a century, which was only won when the Council employed the use of the [[ProudWarriorRace krogan]], which in turn lead to Krogan Rebellions. When the Turians came accross Mankind tinkering with an unexplored Relay, it started a small war. On top of hostile unknown races being at the other side of a Mass Relay, there is also a chance you could run into other nasty things, like black holes or massive fields of space-junk.\\\Actually an inversion; using the relays by themselves is perfectly safe. Using the FTL drives on the ship is perfectly safe (provided you remembered to discharge the static buildup so it doesn't fry everyone on board). The REAL dangers come from the ''other'' people using these technologies, such as the aforementioned rachni or the [[spoiler: Reapers]].* The ''[[VideoGame/{{X}} X-Universe]]'' has a mild example in its PortalNetwork. The gate pairs have a way of (from the younger races' perspective) randomly shifting around due to meddling {{Precursors}}. This sometimes causes colonies of one race to be disconnected from friendly territory and end up connected to that of enemies.* ''VideoGame/ShinMegamiTenseiIIINocturne'' has the Amala Network, a series of Magatsuhi-flowing veins that stretch over the Vortex World that can be traversed via Terminals. Occasionally, travel through the network can get one trapped inside of it; as a result, you'll find the network infested with demons trying to gorge on the Magatsuhi in the network. It is also dangerous for humans to stay in the network for too long, lest they be subjected to BodyHorror, or worse.* ''VideoGame/{{Runescape}}'' has a location called the Abyss. It has been said that whenever teleportation magic is used, for just a split second that is too short to notice, your body exists in three locations at once, the point of departure, the point of arrival, and in the abyss. When you actually get to see what the abyss looks like, for the purpose of using it as a short cut to the runecrafting altars, it turns out to be BloodyBowelsOfHell and is filled with swarms of highly aggressive monsters than can very quickly kill players who are low level or are not prepared for them.* Story design documents released from ''VideoGame/EarthAndBeyond'' after its servers were shut down revealed that protagonists of the game, The V'rix, originated from hyperspace. To the players they appeared as terrifying insectoid creatures and ships, but the design documents revealed that this was merely a perception that played on human's primal fears and not their actual forms. They were the guardians of The Ancient Gate System left behind by [[AscendToAHigherPlaneOfExistence The Ancients]] and showed up and started attacking humans (and documents revealed they would have ended up [[EarthShatteringKaboom blowing up the Earth]]) because of our improper use of The Ancient Gates.

[[/folder]]

[[folder:Web Comics]]* In the web comic ''Bohemian Drive'', one of the characters talks about the rumors he heard about wormhole technology as he steps into the teleportation booth, describing how it's this twisting, freaky experience. Then he subverts it by admitting that it's actually supposed to be quite smooth, as the welcome guy on the other side greets them with nothing else changing to indicate the change. [[http://www.bohemiandrive.com/comics/npwil/18.html Link]]* Parodied (but of course) in [[http://www.smbc-comics.com/index.php?db=comics&id=113#comic a strip]] of ''Webcomic/SaturdayMorningBreakfastCereal''.* In ''Webcomic/{{Outsider}}'', faster-than-light travel involves jumping between solar system's gravity wells. Miscalculating the jump can result in colliding with the star whose system you're targeting, bouncing off of real space until you eventually re-embed, being stranded in hyperspace, or being liberated into negative hyperspace. There's also the side effect (in non-Soia-Liron organisms, such as humans) of [[ArsonMurderAndJaywalking bad dreams and nausea]] after a jump.* FTL travel in ''{{Webcomic/Harbourmaster}}'' involves the A-S drive, which surrounds ships with a field that allows them to slip into another "layer" of space called underspace. Time operates strangely in underspace; two minutes inside of it equals two-hundred light years of movement. Coincidentally, two minutes is also the maximum amount of time that can be spent in underspace before the ship and it's crew just... ''vanish''. Nobody knows what happens to them. ** It's also apparently extremely difficult to navigate in underspace. The [[HyperspaceLanes Hub Beacons]] exist because without them pilots would be hopelessly lost, which risks either not exiting within the time limit or exiting a jump right next to a star or some other hazard. Even worse, it ''has'' to be a physical and sentient pilot; autopilots and drones sent into underspace are just fried, dooming any ships that try to use them. ** It's mentioned that some people have tried to create land-based wormholes that tap into underspace. These actually work, in that [[GoneHorriblyRight they can potentially suck an entire landmass into underspace]].** One reason [[{{Precursors}} the Qohathoth]] are so mysterious is that their methods of space travel were utterly insane and bizarre. Their starships were somehow capable of ''creating sound and vibration in space'' (which basically breaks the laws of physics). What little writings they left behind claim they achieved FTL travel using [[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dark_matter dark matter]] and that it warped space and time just by activating.[[/folder]]

[[folder:Western Animation]]* In ''WesternAnimation/XMenEvolution'', the dimension Nightcrawler teleports through is shown to be a [[FireAndBrimstoneHell hell-like place]] with lots of lava and monstrous red velociraptors dwell.... Despite all this Nightcrawler comments it was "Not a place I'd vacation, but still wild." Of course, ''then'' the beasties got out...* Kup of the ''Franchise/{{Transformers}}'', a giant mechanical war veteran, is still given "the shivers" by hyperspace (known to the Autobots as "The Void").* Spoofed mercilessly in ''WesternAnimation/FamilyGuyPresentsLaughItUpFuzzball'', where it shows the [[Series/DoctorWho Fourth Doctor opening]].* In the ''WesternAnimation/{{Futurama}}'' episode "Mobiüs Dick", Leela's obsession with a fourth-dimensional SpaceWhale causes the Planet Express ship and its crew to be pulled into the fourth dimension (after Leela makes Amy harpoon the whale). Much MindScrew ensues: --->'''Hermes''': I can see sideways in time! Emit ni syawedis ees nac I![[/folder]]